And they were watching Jesus closely to see whether He would heal the man on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
This verse reveals a painful contrast. On one side there is a suffering man; on the other, those around him who are more interested not in his healing, but in finding an accusation against Christ. They were watching Jesus not with faith, nor with a desire to understand the truth, but with the intent to trap Him. For them, the question of the Sabbath day had become a tool by which they tried to judge even Him who had come to fulfill the true meaning of the law. Here the blindness of the human heart is shown very sharply. When envy or hardened religious pride rules the heart, a person no longer sees another’s pain. He can stand beside the one who suffers and still think not about mercy, but about judging. This episode warns us that it is possible for a person to be outwardly religious and at the same time inwardly so cold-hearted that he even tries to make the work of God into grounds for accusation.